Bcz he doesn't want us to do our will, but to learn His will. Why? Bcz His will is infinitely better than ours. He therefore has to teach us. & there can be no teaching without us seeing the result of going against His will(sin).

His will is righteousness, love, mercy, etc... This is still the main battle fought today. Our will or His will. It has never been about anything else...

Joshua 24:15 If it seems bad to you to serve ADONAI, then choose today whom you are going to serve! Will it be the gods your ancestors served beyond the River? or the gods of the Emori, in whose land you are living? As for me and my household, we will serve ADONAI!"

Who will ye all serve? Yehovah or yourselves? Choose ye this day whom ye will serve.

When I can see a) Him and b) His will and c) the results of going against His will, then I can at least begin to be taught or instructed.

Right now, all I have is a bunch of people claiming to represent Him and to know His will, although they have failed to demonstrate that this knowledge is accurate or even factual. What they (and by they I include you) present is indistinguishable from fiction.

Is that the best defence you can make for your god? That he "only" tortures people for a few days rather than forever, so therefore he's actually a really nice guy?

The burning will last till you body gets totally consumed. If it last 20 seconds, good for you. If it lasts 2 min, what do you want me to say? It is what it is...

Who can question The Lord God Almighty anyway?

When someone tries to tell me that "hey - the most horrible pain you will ever endure will ONLY last for a few minutes - isn't god wonderful for not making it last longer!!!", yes, I do indeed question.

Treat me like I am dumb, Shin - explain to me clearly in words of one syllable how ONLY torturing me for a few minutes (when he could not turture me at all) makes your god loving?

Like I asked you before - how is this different from my rape defence being "well, I could have killed her - I'm really a good guy"?

So yes He created us with the ability to deny Him & disobey Him. Makes total sense. In order for there to be true love, one must choose & not be forced to love.

So....your god could have created humanity so that the ONLY thing they could do would be to love him. But instead he created them with choice.

Tell me, Shin - just who did that decision benefit?

Yahweh being super-powered, he could have created man so that they could ONLY love him, and would have no problem with this condition - indeed, Yahweh could make it so that man would never even realise it. With his mighty powers, he could make it so that everyone trly believed they loved him through choice rather than through direction. Every human would live with god in happiness forever, and NOBODY would ever have to be punished - for sin would never exist.

But Yahweh, despite that knowledge, decided that man needed to be able to CHOOSE to love him......despite knowing full well that this would mean many billions of people being unhappy, many billions of people being punished for sin, many billions of people burning way in hell.

Tell me, Shin - just who did that decision benefit?

Did it benefit man, who could have been created to a blissful life that felt exactly as if they had choice?

Or did it benefit Yahweh, fulfilling his need to be loved - whatever the cost?

Millions of people thought the earth was flat at some point... and they were all wrong.

Besides ... these billions you speak of fundamentally disagree on their definition of "god". Christianity alone has over 38,000 denominations. You yourself started this thread making it very clear that you separate yourself from catholics and the orthodox.

Funny how theists lump themselves in with the "billions" when it's convenient and then separate themselves from those same billions in the next breath.

I really am hoping you're compiling a 100 page .pdf detailing unbiased empirical evidence towards the existence of your deity and not ignoring me. Chances are I'm wrong, but isn't one allowed to dream at the tender age of 18? Hell, you could pray really hard to show a non believer the light. Surely an omnipotent guy can change the mind of a heathen? I consider myself pretty open-minded. Hell, my friends have even convinced me to read/watch The Vampire Diaries, no small feat considering I had a small aversion to it since Twilight.

Not quite. I am a non-denominational chrisitan(which is what one should be). But I have to admit that the only denomination out there that has kept some kind of truth, is the 7th day adventists. If your parents are indeed 7th dayers, you should listen to them one day. It's far from nonsense.

Logged

Presuppositionalism wins everytime

Nietzsche : "Those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."

Bcz he doesn't want us to do our will, but to learn His will. Why? Bcz His will is infinitely better than ours. He therefore has to teach us. & there can be no teaching without us seeing the result of going against His will(sin).

His will is righteousness, love, mercy, etc... This is still the main battle fought today. Our will or His will. It has never been about anything else...

Joshua 24:15 If it seems bad to you to serve ADONAI, then choose today whom you are going to serve! Will it be the gods your ancestors served beyond the River? or the gods of the Emori, in whose land you are living? As for me and my household, we will serve ADONAI!"

Who will ye all serve? Yehovah or yourselves? Choose ye this day whom ye will serve.

When I can see a) Him and b) His will and c) the results of going against His will, then I can at least begin to be taught or instructed.

Right now, all I have is a bunch of people claiming to represent Him and to know His will

Fair enough. What do you want me to say to this? Ask God to reveal Himself to you then, I don't know...

Logged

Presuppositionalism wins everytime

Nietzsche : "Those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."

So yes He created us with the ability to deny Him & disobey Him. Makes total sense. In order for there to be true love, one must choose & not be forced to love.

Yahweh being super-powered, he could have created man so that they could ONLY love him

No.

What we have here folks is an admission that Yahweh does indeed have limitations to his power. It is important also to note that Yahweh essentially DID create people to only love him, or at least to obey his instructions to commit evil unquestioningly.

Of course, the Dark Lord also " created" orcs by spoiling captured elves and turning them into a bastardized mockery of Eru's proudest creation. Christians are a lot like Orcs. Motivated by fear of their overlord, they can be coerced into accepting wickedness as goodness, slavery as freedom, war as peace, and ignorance as strength. Just like Big Brother.

Logged

"A resurrected person who is also the son of a virgin could still be talking nonsense. There's no logic that says he must be right. " Christopher Hitchens

Well you certainly seem to KNOW this, even though there is no possible way that you COULD know this. Are you a Legilimens or something? By the way, Hitchens rejected all religious doctrines. The fact of the matter is that Hell has been preached about for centuries, millennia even, and lots of folks believe in it, and use it to terrorize children. The truth or falsehood of the doctrine is really irrelevant, what is relevant is that the teachings of Jesus have been used to enslave and destroy countless people through the years, and the blood is on your hands too SHIN, since you put your name on the dotted line and accepted human sacrifice as the greatest event in history.

Logged

"A resurrected person who is also the son of a virgin could still be talking nonsense. There's no logic that says he must be right. " Christopher Hitchens

So yes He created us with the ability to deny Him & disobey Him. Makes total sense. In order for there to be true love, one must choose & not be forced to love.

Yahweh being super-powered, he could have created man so that they could ONLY love him

No.

And your Biblical reference for Yahweh's limitations is.....? I honestly wonder where you get it from. Yahweh seemed to have no problem "hardening the hearts" of Phaeroh - are you saying it is just making people love he has problems with, but making people hate he can do with ease?

Shin: when someone is with Yahweh in heaven, is it possible for them to sin? Think carefully before you answer.

I just wanted to point out that less than 1/3 of the world's population considers themselves Christian. The overwhelming majority of Christians are Catholic. And we know how you feel about Catholics. If you count the Catholics, it certainly still constitutes "billions" plural. But not by a lot. If you are looking for folks who interpret the scriptures in a way that is similar to your interpretation, certainly less than a billion.

Not that it really matters. Just because a lot of people believe something, doesn't make it true. When the majority of human beings believed the earth was flat, that did not make the earth flat.

^ We are talking about a belief in a supreme being. Not just christians So yes, whether u like it or not, we are billions.

Is belief in a supreme being the one and only characteristic you value? Do you truly equate your POV with that of a muslim father who has just beheaded his own daughter for turning down a marriage proposal. Do you truly equate your POV with the hindus and buddhists and muslims and yes, christians, who adhere to and employ the caste system on the Indian subcontinent? Do you truly equate your POV with the hard-hearted bullies of Westboro Baptist Church in the US? Do you truly equate your POV with the Klu Klux Klan? Do you truly equate your POV with the Ugandan bishop who wants to not just ban, but execute gays?

Its fine if you said that because you are desperate. I wouldn't be able to blame you for that. Desperate posts call for desperate measures. But it sucks if you are actually able to believe one thing about the religions you disagree with one minute and then believe something completely opposite the next.

For myself it would be: Heaven? A place of eternal torture forever? YES. For me, heaven would be hell.

As an ex-Christian who sincerely accepted Jesus I have been assured by the "once saved, always saved" believers that I am going to heaven whether I want to or not, no choice now. For eternity I would be turned into some kind of worship robot praising a Supreme Being who I rejected for decades and viewed the god of the Old Testament as a psychopath. A Supreme Being that must have a Supreme Ego that sees nothing wrong with bathing in the worship of his creation for eternity I would think that after a few millenia even he would get tired of having his ego stroked and just say, "Enough already, on your way".

For me heaven would be a place of eternal torture forever. Being a schizoid I prefer my own company, being alone. In heaven, as a worship zombie, I would be forced for eternity to endure the company of those who I despised in mortal life not for their beliefs but for their hypocrisy and how they mistreated and judged others. Heaven would be hell. No thanks, I'd rather be dead forever.

^ only good part would have been getting to talk with other dead people... but if its only the christians, it doesn't seem like a very fun conversation. Now if I could sit down, have a coffee with Jefferson, Franklin, Twain, Hemingway, and Hitchens - sign me up.

Logged

"If we look back into history for the character of the present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution."